Ranger's Red Glare
by PinPin13
Summary: A variety of sparks fly around Stephanie and Tank... and Ranger doesn't like what he sees.
1. Fireworks

Disclaimer – I do not own the characters, etc. I am only borrowing them from Janet. This is not for profit, just for kicks.

Xy's 4th of July Challenge – PerfectlyPlum, July 2011

**Ranger's Red Glare****  
><strong>By PinPin

A streak of white fire split the night sky. _Pbbfffffzzzzzzeeeeeee__…_ Its tail faded away before igniting again, blooming in a scarlet shower of light. _BOOM!_

Stephanie sighed and trudged down the block to where her Q7 was parked at a small distance from the expanding, strobing, technicolor crime scene. Not far from her car, were two black trucks. A thick knot of Rangemen had appeared only moments before the police and fire departments. They stood back, watching the spectacle with raised, gadgety cell phones, recording it all for posterity and future nights filled with drunken boasting and hilarity.

"Well, this is definitely the most dramatic so far," one of the strong deep voices commented. "I didn't think anything could top what happened at the Outdoor Living Expo, but this might make the national news."

"No chance this takes longer than an hour to go viral," said another.

Yet a third lamented, "I wish we could sell tickets to these things."

But there was one man who wasn't smiling. Keeping one eye on Stephanie, Tank watched the sparking sky with numb detachment. The house burned unevenly, spitting forth picturesque explosions at unpredictable intervals. It lacked the precision of coordinated, holiday pyro-displays and sounded out in an irregular rhythm, eerily mimicking the chaotic tattoo of scattered ordnance colliding with crumbling landmarks and broken cityscapes. "I'd hoped I'd never hear sounds like that in person again," he murmured to the other men, draining the levity from the moment and replacing it with dark, fading memories of nights when it had rained sandy dirt on tarp canopies and the shudder of the ground worked its way deep into tired bones.

A strong gust of wind swept chemical ash and the scent of burnt sulfur across rooftops and through trees, finally swirling back down to Earth to settle its dusty payload amongst the awestruck witnesses. Behind the house, the garage collapsed in a giant puff of embers that threatened to ignite the dry twigs and leaves littering the alley and neighboring yard. In front of the charred heep was a rusted out Mark VI that had finally seen its last serviceable day. The car wasn't so much _damaged_ as it was simply upside down. Watching the tow truck driver scratch his head, Tank was thankful that for once the recovery of the vehicle wasn't his responsibility. Stephanie's car had miraculously survived the incident unscathed.

He pulled a packet of wet wipes out of his pocket as he made his way over to her. "You've got a little something," he said, pointing to her cheek.

From crown to ground, she was grimey with soot and gravelly soil from when she'd dived for cover. Accepting the wipes with a pursed frown, she asked, "Do you know what it looks like when thirty thousand sparklers ignite at the same time?"

"No," he answered with a straight face. "Was it pretty?"

"It was horrifying," she cried. "It looked like the fourth dimension caught on fire and was in so much pain that space and time threw up on each other. At least I _think_ that's what happened; I got a D in physics."

Tank didn't answer. He stood silently watching her dab at her hands and arms.

"Don't laugh," she ordered, correctly interpreting his silence as mirth-preventative.

"I won't." He noticed the blood on the used wipes as she tucked them back into the empty package. "You're bleeding. Do you need the paramedics to look at you?"

Stephanie glanced over at the idling ambulance with a scowl.

He followed her gaze and gently held up one of her arms, inspecting the scratches that ran down from her elbow. "Wouldn't you rather endure a ten minute check right now instead of being admitted tomorrow because you ignored a problem tonight?"

"Nice try, but I'm immune to level-headed notions."

"Do you really want me to try harder?" he asked and clearly read her answer in her crooked attempt to raise only one eyebrow. "Bobby then, at least?" he conceded.

She nodded her agreement immediately, a sign of how tired she truly was. "I swear all I did was step onto the stoop," she said. "I wasn't even within arm's reach of the door when the whole thing just lit up like a beacon for intergalactic travelers."

Tank held up her other arm for inspection, finding similar spots of road rash. His fingers then grazed a path at the side of her neck where glowing shrapnel had left a series of small cuts and burns. "Well, even if it wasn't friendly, at least it was a warm welcome."

"Don't laugh; it isn't funny," she demanded. "It's tragic. How high do you think people have to be before deciding it's a good idea to use a house for _both_ their meth lab and storage space? They'd loaded up the attic, second floor, and garage with hazardous chemicals _and_ their full inventory of illegal fireworks!"

Tank was silent again.

"You _want_ to laugh though," she accused. "Everyone else did."

"Not me," he insisted. He held her eye and asked, "can I smile?"

Stephanie planted her hands on her hips. "Why?"

The ends of his lips curved upward and he took a step closer, "I like fireworks." He brushed some hair from her face and pulled out several blades of dead grass tangled in the curls. "Besides, how often do the stars align as perfectly as this? This is impressive, even for you."

She squinted in disbelief. "You think this is perfect?"

He pulled her even closer to him, stepping to the side to hide them further behind the far end of the nearby fire engine. Bursts of light in every color flared and faded above them while rotating red and blue lights flashed on either side. "It's the best kind of perfect."

They mirrored each others' smiles. Even lifted on her toes, steadying herself with a hand on his chest, stretching her neck; Tank still needed to lower his head for her to reach his lips. He waited a beat to watch her long lashes flutter closed before shutting his own eyes and closing the distance, gently tasting her.

She loved how soft and full his lips felt. He loved the way she had to spread her smaller, thinner, fingers as wide as they'd go in order to thread them through his. He felt her breathing quicken while she felt his heart pound. What was developing between them was still new enough to be exciting, a push and pull of exploration, learning each other and what they could be together.

He kept possession of her hands and spoke quietly, "you scared me."

"I didn't do anything. It wasn't my fault."

"I know and I don't care," he said, "I was scared anyway."

Stephanie kissed him again, tracing his lips with the tip of her tongue until he let her in to soothe his fears with warm, intimate caresses.

When they broke apart again, Tank searched Stephanie eyes with undisguised wariness. "Ranger's back," he said. "He's on his way here."

Stephanie's eyes bulged. "What?"

"He's been back for a week," Tank confessed with more than a little worry about how she'd react, "and I begged him to go see you."

She nodded her head in understanding, but the information wasn't fully registering. "Did you tell him about us?"

"No, and I made sure no one else has either," he vowed. His hand cupped her cheek. "I promised. You'll decide how and when."

"Well I can't tell him right now, not here, not like this," she said, pushing him and stepping away to a distance far less cozy. "And until I do…" she trailed off when she saw the sudden change come over Tank's features and felt a chill grip her chest. Like an ice bath, it hit her; that creeping tingle along her neck.

"I'm so sorry, Steph," Tank whispered, looking over her shoulder at something across the street, "but he already knows now."

She snapped her head around to find Ranger standing there in the street, watching them, as rigid and ominous as the bronze Leonidas. His angry stare burned a bloody red and brighter than flames.

Stephanie's hand automatically found its way back into Tank's, tangling their fingers once again. As his firm, devoted grip tightened for a moment, his thumb soothed over her tense knuckles. Stephanie's own hand mimicked the gesture and gave an answering squeeze. They would confront the firestorm together.

(1,410 words)

**A/N: Special thanks go out to BoxsterGirl for her generous input and help with revisions. ****This is a one-shot, written in response to a group challenge at Y!PerfectlyPlum. (Though I may consider adding to this at some point in the future.) Thank you for reading.**


	2. He's Gone

Disclaimer – I do not own the characters, etc. I am only borrowing them from Janet. This is not for profit, just for kicks.

** A/N: So, this is my first attempt at an SP/MM pairing and I'm not 100% positive I'm going to be very good at it. I'm sort of hoping for some inspiring group challenges in the near future, and although I don't normally do this, I'm going to consider personal reader requests and/or challenges. So if you've got any for me, go ahead and let me have 'em. I currently have a 26-scene outline. Some are fully written while others have a lot of elbow room to fill, but unlike my other multi-chap. stories, I will strive to keep each chapter to a limited length and will include a word count for each one. Okay. Here goes nothing… **

last time:  
><em>Stephanie's hand automatically found its way back into Tank's, tangling their fingers once again. As his firm, devoted grip tightened for a moment, his thumb soothed over her tense knuckles. Stephanie's own hand mimicked the gesture and gave an answering squeeze. They would confront the firestorm together.<em>

**Ranger's Red Glare – Chapter 2  
><strong>By PinPin

_(thirteen months earlier)_

Stephanie shifted her battered pillow for the eightieth time in a futile attempt to find a comfortable position that allowed for both a view of the television as well as a practical way to keep her ice pressed against her injured shoulder. It wasn't working and Stephanie decided that if another skip ever ran towards a public waterslide in the future, she would just let him run and come back for him the next day.

Seven awkward cushion adjustments later she was mere seconds away from having one hell of a private little tantrum, but a knock at the door derailed her swelling irritation. Shuffling stiffly to the door and checking the peephole, all that was visible in the hall was black and more black. "Who is it?" she called out.

"Tank," the deep, base voice reverberated against the flimsy door.

"You know," Stephanie spoke as she opened the door and stepped aside to let him in, "when you're at the door it highlights just how useless this peephole is."

Tank noticed right away that she was favoring her left arm and grew concerned. "Do you want to upgrade your security? Have you had problems?"

She relocked the door behind him and led the way into the kitchen. "No, nothing like that, no, I'm just pointing out how ridiculous it is that you were ever allowed to get so big. You're entirely inconvenient. All I see through the peephole when I check the door is a majestic expanse of sculpted pectorals." She put her ice pack back in the freezer and finally faced Tank with welcoming attention. "I mean, so far it's always been you behind them, but you never know, next time it could be a colorblind lunatic with a Bowflex addiction."

A moment of silence passed between them, both of them unused to the non-professional setting. Stephanie recovered first. "So, what's up?"

"I've got a distraction job for you, that is if you're up for it," he added, gesturing at her shoulder.

"Oh," Stephanie reacted to the unexpected request. She wondered what the job could be that Tank was there to ask for her help instead of Ranger. "Sure, I can do that. When is it?"

Tank had the fleeting urge to scold her for agreeing to something without knowing all of the details first, but he held his tongue and handed over the file he'd brought with him. The consummate professional, he went through a detailed explanation of the particulars; who, where, when, and how. By the time he was finished, Stephanie was more informed about the technical execution of the mission than she ever was when Ranger briefed her for a job. Tank didn't suffer from the same distractions Ranger did. He had no image to reinforce, no persona to uphold. He didn't feel the need to impress her with any mysterious abilities. He told her exactly what would happen and how it would happen. Tank was all business.

Stephanie was in a similar situation. Besides doing her best and not disappointing the Rangemen who placed their faith in her to play her role in the sting, she had naught to prove. Tank's personal opinion of her mattered little. Ranger's opinion was an entirely different conundrum. Even his absence affected her. She went over the file again, memorizing the pertinent information. It was just a typical distraction job. So where was Ranger? Why was Tank giving it to her?

Several minutes passed before she finally let herself consider the possibility that Ranger was 'in the wind' again and that perhaps Tank was there to fill in for him.

Tank had been watching her closely throughout everything. As some thought or idea settled over Stephanie, her seeming reluctance to meet his eye and the minor change in her posture sent up red flags for him.

"You didn't know he was gone, did you?" he asked, getting his answer from the angle of her slightly bowed head. He realized too late that he'd walked straight into the messy minefield of Ranger's personal life.

Stephanie frowned. "I never know about it until he's already gone," she reluctantly admitted.

"Really?" he asked.

She was immediately defensive. "Ranger doesn't answer to me," she said. "He can go where and when he likes. It's none of my business."

Tank was confused by her reaction. "Do you believe that?"

"Of course I do," she claimed too quickly, making it sound like a lie, and then just as swiftly recovered her peeved attitude. "And I'm not about to force my way into something he's obviously not interested in sharing when I know it has nothing to do with me."

"Look, if I've overstepped, just say so," Tank declared, hearing her snide tone, "but don't tell _me_ the things you assume _Ranger_ wants to hear."

Stephanie blinked for a second and looked at him as if he'd transformed in front of her. No longer 'Tank: Ranger's sidekick,' he became 'Tank: That guy I don't know but who knows way too much about me.'

Now she was embarrassed, and she didn't see why she should be the only one. "It's always been annoying that sometimes he just mysteriously disappears, but…" she took a deep breath and had a mental 'oh, what the hell' moment before confessing, "for some reason it hurts this time and it's just ultra-awkward that you can tell and know all about it."

What Tank didn't know was what to say to that.

"Look," she succumbed to the humiliation, "I don't want to talk about it. Okay?" She picked up the business profile he'd brought to her and asked, "so what kind of place is this?"

"It's a bar on Saratoga," he mechanically answered.

"And…" she prompted with a raised brow.

"Capacity 500, one public entrance with security on the door, three public exits and another through the kitchen for staff, the back offices are monitored by camera, we'll have two men inside and two men outside."

Stephanie rolled her eyes at him. "I get that, but what should I wear?"

He just stared back silently.

"I've never been to this place, but I'm assuming you or someone else at RangeMan has been inside. I'll need to blend in, so even if you don't really care and all you have is a lame opinion, I still want to hear it. Cough up."

Tank smirked at her and barely managed to hold off his laughter. "Does Ranger help you choose your outfits?"

Her eyes narrowed, "when Ranger has an opinion about anything he isn't shy about sharing it."

That broke his control and Tank let out a thunderclap of laughter.

A muscle jumped in Stephanie's jaw and she folded her arms defensively and asked, "do you have any idea when he'll be back?"

What there had been of Tank's mirth fell away as cold and heavy as an avalanche. "It won't be anytime soon."

(1,150 words)

**Thank you for reading.**


	3. Hello ?

Disclaimer – I do not own the characters, etc. I am only borrowing them from Janet. This is not for profit, just for kicks.

previously:  
><em>She snapped her head around to find Ranger standing there in the street, watching them, as rigid and ominous as the bronze Leonidas. His angry stare burned a bloody red and brighter than flames. <em>_Stephanie's hand automatically found its way back into Tank's, tangling their fingers once again. As his__ firm, devoted grip tightened for a moment, his thumb soothed over her tense knuckles. Stephanie's own hand mimicked the gesture and gave an answering squeeze. They would confront the firestorm together._

**Ranger's Red Glare – Chapter 3****  
><strong>By PinPin

_(Present Day)_

The trio stared at each other for several seconds. Stephanie felt her face grow warm. Her eyes watered from the heat of Ranger's gaze and when it shifted away from her, she shivered.

Tank and Ranger were caught in a silent war of wills. The tension radiated from them like a visible force and Stephanie couldn't bring herself to do anything but gulp in the hot, smoky night air.

After a silent moment, Ranger glanced over Tank's shoulder at the firemen on the scene and asked, "Is this under control here?"

Tank gave one short curt nod.

Ranger didn't reply. He turned and walked away.

Stephanie's jaw fell. "Hey," she called out.

He ignored her.

And something inside of her broke. He'd been gone for a year. She'd worried and cried; loved him, hated him, missed him… mourned him. When he turned his back to her without any acknowledgement, a wild sort of panic swept through her.

Hurrying after him in a sudden desperate rush, she shouted "Hey!" Her hands reached out to brace herself as she collided against the passenger side of his car with a dull thud. Wide-eyed, she met his now ice cold expression over the top of his car. "You weren't even going to say hello?"

He ignored her again.

Watching him pull his door open, she scoffed in offended disbelief and reached for the passenger door, but it was locked. She scrambled in her pocket for her keys and beeped the remote.

Before that night, Stephanie had never seen Ranger express to her anything even approaching outrage, but the look he gave her as she fell into the seat beside him told her that he was furious at the idea that she still had his keys in her pocket. "Hi," she gulped. But again… he said nothing. _So typical_, she thought. "Well," she snapped, her own matching fury began to simmer, "drive."

Its driver as silent as ever, the engine roared and sped away. Tank stood behind and watched them disappear, knowing there was nothing else for him to do. Whatever was going to happen between them, it needed to happen without him. He trusted Stephanie. He trusted Ranger. But there was still fear curling in his chest.

When Ranger pulled into the underground lot at Haywood, he cut the engine and exited without a word. Stephanie followed. They rode the elevator in silence. And when they stood staring at each other outside his apartment, Stephanie sighed, rolled her eyes at him, and let herself in with her set of keys. Ranger wanted to slam the door and leave her there alone. But now that she was there. She was so close. They were alone. He couldn't take his eyes off of her.

Stephanie looked around her at the apartment that had stood so still and silent and devoid of life for so long and saw all of the little day to day signs that he was there. That he was alive. That he was real. The mail on the table. The lingering smells left from dinner. A jacket flung over the arm of the sofa. She stared at a half empty bottle of water left on the counter from earlier that morning. The contrast was too great. That one small detail stole her hard earned grasp of one reality and tore it to pieces, leaving another in its place.

She lashed out and knocked the bottle across the room. "You've been back for a week?" she yelled.

His voice came from closer behind her than she expected. "You looked like you missed me."

Whatever it was she'd expected, it wasn't that harsh reproof. She whirled around, her hand raised to strike back the only way her startled mind could find. His reflexes jumped and he captured her wrist. She tried to free it, but he only used the motion to pull her closer.

"Don't," she bit out, holding her head high in the face of his intense scrutiny.

Then he leaned in and kissed her. And for one-mississippi, two-mississippi, she was transported back in time to a dark parking lot, to a time and place when even the prospect of kissing Ranger made her heart race. His lips were strong against her own. She'd thought that she'd forgotten his taste, but she hadn't. Her head tipped to the side – so unlike the way Tank lifted her into their kisses – and Stephanie slammed back into the present with a gasp as she broke the kiss.

"Stop," she ordered and tried to pull her arm free again. "Don't do this to me."

"Do what? Remind you?"

"Yes. Don't remind me."

"Do you really think you can forget?" His open expression froze her. If he hadn't been holding her wrist she might have reached up to touch his face. The black pools in his eyes suddenly so deep and vast, if he had voiced the pleas in his heart aloud, they would have echoed.

When he kissed her this time she let him. She kissed him back, softly. His hold on her wrist loosened and he gently soothed the skin he'd mistreated. His hands were smaller and rougher than Tank's but his touch was gentler. Stephanie didn't like it.

She knew with a certainty that surprised her, that this was a goodbye kiss. And she didn't want it to go on and on. She pulled away again. "But I want to forget." She wasn't used to seeing the way his chest heaved and nearly lost her nerve at the thought that he hurt as badly as she did. But her head told her, that if he did, it wasn't her doing. It was his own fault. "I want to forget the way I felt with you," she confessed.

Stephanie stepped out of his touch and wished that her voice sounded stronger as she told him, "I don't want to think about it every time I look at you. I don't want to see you and only think about what it feels like when you leave. Why would anyone want to remember being hurt that way?"

She took several more steps back and looked him full in the face. "Please," she asked, glad when her voice didn't break and that she felt no need for tears, "don't ever do it again."

His eyes were a soft chestnut then – a tender brown, like the beginning of a faint bruise on his soul.

(1,073 words)

**A/N: Thank you for reading.**


	4. You Changed

Disclaimer – I do not own the characters, etc. I am only borrowing them from Janet. This is not for profit, just for kicks.

previously:  
><em>Stephanie stepped out of his touch and wished that her voice sounded stronger as she told him, "I don't want to think about it every time I look at you. I don't want to see you and only think about what it feels like when you leave. Why would anyone want to remember being hurt that way?" She took several more steps back and looked him full in the face. "Please," she asked, glad when her voice didn't break and that she felt no need for tears, "don't ever do it again." His eyes were a soft chestnut then – a tender brown, like the beginning of a faint bruise on his soul.<em>

**Ranger's Red Glare – Chapter ****4****  
><strong>By PinPin

_(__Present Day, cont'd__)_

"Babe."

How many times in her dreams had she heard him whisper that one word? The sound of her name on his lips was too good to be true. "I missed you so much," she whispered. "I still can't believe you're real." She reached out to touch him as if to prove to herself that he wasn't a mirage, a cruel trick, a bittersweet nightmare in which her desires are granted and then snatched away again. Her shaking hand landed on his shoulder and traveled down his arm to just below his elbow. "I imagined so many horrible things."

Caught between a longing to be held by him and a fear of where it would lead, she slumped against the wall next to him. "I counted all the reasons you might never make it back," she said, her voice growing thick. "Not knowing one way or the other nearly killed me."

Ranger could see her purposefully keeping her distance, the scene so very different from the reunion he'd imagined for long, lonely months. Even at home, he still felt half a world away from her. "It's obvious you found at least one way to carry on."

Stephanie's head snapped up. She stared in slack-jawed disbelief. "Is there something wrong with it if I did?" she demanded sharply. She'd wanted an explanation, or at the very least an apologetic excuse for leaving her so completely in the dark. Instead, he was acting as if she was the one who owed an apology to him. But Stephanie didn't have anything for which she felt sorry. "Don't you dare judge me."

Ranger hated how clueless his time away had made him. She was more a stranger to him than ever. "You've changed."

"Did you think everything would be the same as you left it?" she snapped. "Did you figure since you're a quiet guy maybe you could sneak away and sneak back and no one would notice?" She stood straight and nearly shouted, "Well, we all noticed!" He watched her shift her weight from foot to foot in an agitated, haphazard pattern. "I don't even know where to begin with you, Ranger."

The confusion and hurt from witnessing Stephanie's intimacy with Tank was fading with every second he drank in the sight of her. Ranger hadn't truly felt like he'd returned home until he saw her. And now his own bittersweet nightmare was unfolding before him. "I didn't expect or want things to stay the same as they were," he told her. "You're not the only one who changed."

She searched his tender gaze and saw how true it was. "What am I to you?" she dared to finally ask the question she'd always wanted to ask him.

"You're my reason to come home."

Stephanie was silent while she processed his answer, but in the end she found it unsatisfactory. "That's such a cop out. It doesn't mean anything. You had a hundred reasons to come back to Trenton."

"Babe," Ranger said with an almost scandalized air upon hearing her dismissal of his confession.

"Don't say Babe again or it'll be the last word of yours I ever listen to."

Ranger felt adrift on a sea of uncertainty to hear his _Babe_ forbid the use of his endearment. He tried again to find words that might begin to convey to her everything she meant to him. "You're the first and last thing I think about every day." Ranger's heart sank when it appeared that his second answer was met with as much disapprobation as the first.

"That sounds very touching unless you think about it for more than a second," she said. "Bakers think about bread, butchers think about meat, and security professionals think about women plagued by stalkers. You're not telling me anything I don't already know. For instance, explain to me why you didn't tell me you were leaving. And how the hell could you come back after a year and not let me know? What could I possibly mean to you if you can rationalize doing something like that?"

Ranger believed that he'd done what he'd always done, protected her. "I thought it was for the best. I had no idea when or if I'd ever be back."

Stephanie's temper ignited. "So you were trying to shelter _lil' ol' me_ and my feminine sensibilities from the big, bad, scary world, is that it? You don't have the right to decide what's best for me!"

Her anger relit Ranger's flames as well. "Does Tank have that right?" he barked.

"No," she answered, "and he'd never be foolish enough to presume that he did."

"Great for him. So tell me," Ranger demanded, "has Tank learned to poach or are you sleeping with him?"

Stephanie literally gasped and was physically repelled by the question. "Poaching!" she shouted with disbelief. "It ended between me and Joe months before you even left. His one year wedding anniversary is in a few weeks. So who exactly do you assume Tank would be poaching from? You?"

"Yes. From me." He stepped closer to her again, like he was planning on kissing her a third time. "Or is it only poaching when I kiss you?" he asked, his voice falling lower and slightly husky as the space between them shrank.

Stephanie didn't back away or back down. "You weren't here Ranger. You disappeared. What exactly of mine is it you think you have that others could take from you?"

Suddenly desperate to know the true extent of the distance that now lay between them, Ranger bluntly asked, "Are you sleeping with Tank?"

Her spine straight and her voice steady, Stephanie told Ranger, "I'm in love with him."

With those five simple words – _I'm in love with him_ – the bruise on Ranger's soul sank deeper and became a wound.

(970 words)

**A/N: Thank you for reading.**


	5. Sloe Gin

Disclaimer – I do not own the characters, etc. I am only borrowing them from Janet. This is not for profit, just for kicks.

*A/N: The words in bold are part of a response to the Plum-A-Month Oct. 2011 Week 1 prompts at Y!BabeCakes'R'Us.*

previously:  
><em>She went over the file again, memorizing the pertinent information. It was just a typical distra<em>_c__tion job. So where was Ranger? Why was Tank giving it to her? Several minutes passed before she finally let herself consider the possibility that Ranger was 'in the wind' again and that pe__r__haps Tank was there to fill in for him. Tank had been watching her closely throughout ever__y__thing. As some thought or idea settled over Stephanie, her seeming reluctance to meet his eye and the minor change in her posture sent up red flags for him. "You didn't know he was gone, did you?"_

**Ranger's Red Glare – Chapter ****5****  
><strong>By PinPin

_(__t__welve __m__onths and __t__hree __w__eeks __e__arlier__)_

Stephanie was in rare form. Tank and the other men watched and listened as she distracted and encouraged their target straight into a bill for thirty-five dollars worth of cocktails and then out of the double doors at the front of the bar. Start to finish, the operation took no more than forty minutes.

One detail, however, that had not gone according to plan was the level of cooperation from the bartender. Despite RangeMan's request, he had not watered Stephanie's drinks. So, with the better part of three Sloe Comfortable Screws working their way into her bloodstream, when Stephanie stepped out of the way for Junior to apprehend their target, it was more of a stumble than a dodge.

"Whoa," Tank said as he caught her arm to help steady her balance. "You alright?" Ranger had mentioned to him on more than one occasion that Stephanie was a lightweight drinker, but Tank had never personally witnessed the effect alcohol had on her for himself.

"Yep." She blinked slowly up at him several times and then stretched her eyes a fraction wider as if trying to find the best way to adjust their focus. Then she took an unusually long, deep breath through her nose, dramatically constricting and flaring her nostrils. "Got 'em, Sarge. How'd ya like that?"

A small smile cracked Tank's lips and he recommended, "I think maybe you should wait in the car."

"Okey-dokey." Stephanie fired her thumb and index finger gun at him with a wink and a click of her tongue before turning away and taking a meandering route back to the truck in which she and Tank had arrived.

When he'd finished giving orders and all of the Rangemen were through at the scene, Tank returned to the truck to find that Stephanie had slipped out of her shoes, **peeled** off her thigh high stockings, and removed her cashmere wrap. She now sat in only a short, flared, silk skirt and a very thin, satin and lace camisole. She was slouched in her seat, with her head tipped back and her **eyes closed**. "Why is it so hot in your car?" she immediately asked.

Tank tried not to stare at the graceful expanse of pale skin that stretched from her chin, along her throat, and disappeared down into the shadowed recesses of her chest. "Do not take off any more of your clothing," he ordered.

Stephanie's head and eyelids rose as she turned to look at him. He was staring pointedly ahead with a deep frown creasing his features. "You should smile more, Captain Grumpy Pants."

Tank didn't reply. He silently pulled out onto Saratoga Avenue and chose to ignore the peculiar way it energized him to hear her call him by another teasing nickname.

After several minutes, Stephanie had had her fill of silence. "Why are you so quiet?" she asked. "You have such a great voice. It's thick and rich and dark, like **chocolate pudding**, and I hardly ever get to hear it."

Again, Tank did his best to ignore the **unnerving** tide of satisfaction he felt upon hearing Stephanie's compliment.

"We should have a drink," she continued. "I hate being drunk by myself because I can't **control** my mouth. I always talk too much and if I'm alone I look like a lunatic and if I'm with someone sober they always remember more than I do about all of the crazy shit I said and I still look like a lunatic." She watched his frown sink lower. "Come on, Tank," she whined, "let's go get a drink for real this time."

It wasn't that the idea didn't **appeal** to him, but Tank knew better than to indulge any whims that involved Stephanie. "I think you've had enough for one night."

"It wasn't on purpose," she huffed, lifting her arms up and letting them slackly fall back into her lap. "It was an accident. Why wasn't there a Rangeman behind the bar? I'm 'sposed to get watered down drinks."

Tank didn't budge from his focused zone.

Getting frustrated with Tank's lack of response, Stephanie asserted, "Dickie never used to want to drink with me either. You're both bastards. And he was a hypocrite on top of it." When Tank finally glanced at her, she nudged his shoulder and smirked, "hey, do you want to know why I call my ex-husband The Dick?"

He shook his head and almost laughed. "I highly doubt it."

"It's because he got wasted at his bachelor party and had a picture of his own dick tattooed on his butt. Isn't that the stupidest thing you ever heard? I mean think about it. It means that he must have asked someone to take a really good look at his dong and then draw a picture of it. Seriously, who does something like that?"

Tank did laugh softly at that, but it died away quickly when he saw the glum expression on Stephanie's face.

"I married that guy. What is wrong with me?" she wondered quietly. "I promised to cherish a man with a sketch of his own penis permanently etched on his ass cheek until death do us part."

For several beats, Tank felt her gaze boring into him. She was contemplating the ease with which she'd shared such a private detail, but the drinks from the bar had too great a hold of her mind to allow for any meaningful conclusions.

"Don't you think this feels weird?" she asked as she lazily wagged her hand to indicate the two of them. "It's a little weird, right?" She reached over and touched his arm. "Isn't it?"

Weird wasn't the right word. Tank felt more like it was uncomfortable and **awkward**, but it wasn't for any reason he'd consider out of the ordinary. To him this was simply run-of-the-mill, drunken babble.

Her focus shifting to where her hand was resting on his bicep, she flexed her grip on it. "I never felt your muscles before. They're very nice."

Her hand **lingered** on his arm with no indication that she planned to remove it. This time Tank couldn't ignore the unwelcomed, nervous thrill that zipped through him.

"What's that all for anyway? Why are you so strong? It's stupid to be that healthy. What's the point? Who wants to live to be ninety if it means you can't have pizza or cake?" The thought of greasy, fatty food disturbed Stephanie's stomach and she swallowed thickly. "I think I might definitely be drunk."

"It's a safe bet," Tank said as he witnessed the color in her cheeks change. "Don't throw up in this car."

Stephanie slumped to the side, letting her head rest against the cool glass of the window. "I wish I had somewhere else to go other than home," was all she said before finally falling silent for the rest of the ride back to her building.

When they pulled into her lot, Stephanie pointed up at her balcony. "Look, the lights are out in my apartment," she **stage-whispered** for no good reason that Tank could discern. "I bet Rex is asleep."

He glanced up at her window and asked, "are they supposed to be on?"

Stephanie gathered her discarded clothing and opened her door. "I hate being alone when I'm drunk," she complained again. "It's a waste of drunk." She hauled herself out of the truck and unsteadily progressed in the direction of the lobby doors.

Tank quickly cut off the engine with the intention of following her. He wasn't afflicted with the same **feral** possessiveness that Ranger felt towards Stephanie, but he liked her an awful lot and always felt the urge to protect her whenever he could. "Wait," Tank told her, "I'll walk up with you."

"No, you don't need to come up," she dismissed him. "I'll be fine as soon I burn this dress and sponge myself down with bleach." Stephanie saw his doubt and held up **three fingers**, pledging, "scout's honor."

Tank still felt uneasy about letting her go unescorted. Even the walk from the parking lot to the building could be **dangerous** for an obviously drunk woman at night. He watched and waited from the driver's seat as Stephanie made it through the doors only to then slow her pace and drop down onto the bench in the lobby. She bent forward with her head between her knees and her hands over her face. Tank sprang from his post, scolding himself for not insisting that he accompany her from the start.

She looked up when he reached her and he stopped short at the sight of her tired features. "Has he always been so **secretive**," she asked, "or is he just that way with me?"

The sad light in her eye provoked no small amount of pity from him and the knowledge that her misery partly grew from the disappointment she felt when she looked for Ranger but found only Tank there in his stead, reawakened in him a long conquered sense of inferiority that he'd been certain he'd left in his past. Old insecurities were freshly renewed and bent his thoughts until they chastised him for Stephanie's condition, insisting that if Ranger had been there he wouldn't have allowed it to happen.

"I wonder what he's doing right now," she mumbled, "but I bet you couldn't tell me if you knew, right?"

Tank gave a mental sigh and pulled Stephanie to her feet. She staggered against him for support and he sighed aloud this time. With a **barbarous** grunt, he hoisted her up and slung her over his shoulders in a version of a fireman's lift, carrying her toward the elevator.

As they passed by the wall panel Stephanie kicked out and **rammed** her foot against the call button, but the indicator light failed to glow. "This thing is always broken," she complained.

Tank didn't even slow his progress, but continued to the stairwell and started climbing. "This is one of the things my muscles are good for," he chuckled, taking the **opportunity** to answer some of Stephanie's earlier teasing.

A minute later he was depositing her onto her bed and double checking that she had everything she might need for the night. As he was leaving, he was halted by Stephanie's voice in the dark.

"Tank?" she called out, faintly slurring the word.

He stopped in her doorway and looked over his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, and thanks," she murmured. "Good night."

Tank heard a tiny sniffle in the dark and was angry at Ranger for being even a small part of the reason her lower lip trembled. He nodded and quickly exited the apartment. Now that Stephanie was safe and sound in bed, Tank _would_ go some place quiet and have that stiff drink she'd requested from him. Maybe he'd have more than one.

(1,805 words)

**A/N: Thank you for reading.**

*As well as being my first attempt at a Tart pairing, this is also my first foray into nonlinear storytelling. I'd be much obliged for any constructive criticism on that front.*


	6. Call Me

Disclaimer – I do not own the characters, etc. I am only borrowing them from Janet. This is not for profit, just for kicks.

**Ranger's Red Glare – Chapter ****6****  
><strong>By PinPin

_(twelve months and two__ weeks__ earlier)_

"Ladies," Tank greeted Connie and Lula. He gave them a moment to collect their wits and finish fanning themselves. "Is he here?" he asked with a grimace.

"No," Connie said, significantly brightening Tank's mood.

One important difference between the way Ranger and Tank conducted business with the bonds office was their ability to tolerate Vinnie Plum. Ranger could and did. Tank could not and did not. On the occasions when Tank had to handle RangeMan's agreement with the bail-bondsman, he strictly spoke only to Connie and avoided Lula whenever possible. It wasn't that he had anything against her, personally. It was that conversations with her, while often lively and entertaining, were rarely efficient or productive.

He flipped through the files Connie handed him and then glanced down at the others on her desk. "Are those for Stephanie?" He'd been thinking about her since the night of their last distraction, though he hadn't had any opportunity to see her. He had the feeling she was avoiding him.

Connie paused mid-smack of her gum and looked up at him through suspicious eyelashes. "Yeah," she answered slowly almost making the word a question. She exchanged a glance with Lula. Ranger checked Stephanie's files so often he didn't even ask anymore, but she hadn't expected any interest from Tank on that front.

He lifted the corners of each folder, glancing at the names and the current charges. One in particular caught his eye. "This is a rapist."

"Statutory," Connie said. The withering look Tank shot her made it perfectly clear that those kinds of distinctions were lost on him. When he began to read through the papers more closely Connie warned him, "Stephanie gets pretty pissy when Ranger takes her files."

But Tank hadn't planned on taking the file. He wouldn't steal work from her.

"Where Ranger at, anyway?" Lula asked.

"Unavailable," he answered, telling them all they needed to know.

"Huh," Lula huffed grumpily, "well that explains why Miss Thang be mopin' 'round like a kicked puppy half the time."

"Do you know when she'll be in to pick these up?" he asked.

"Today," Lula told him. "She grabbed Leo Molinsk early this morning staggering home from SophistiKitty's. He's a big receipt."

Tank gave a quick nod and then strolled out the door without further comment.

"What was that?" Lula asked as she stepped closer to the windows, craning her neck to watch Tank walk down the block. She saw him climb into his truck, but not drive away. "I think he's waitin' for her," she half gasped excitedly, "call Steph and tell her to come right away."

"I already texted her," Connie said, refocusing on the top coat of her nail polish.

Twenty five minutes later Stephanie entered through the back door to a roomful of groans. "Why did you come in the back?" Lula demanded.

"Why not?" she looked around the office, "hey, you said there'd be chicken."

"Tank was looking through your files," Lula pointed at the desk like a three year old tattle-tale, distracting Stephanie while Connie sent another covert text.

"What? Tank did?" Stephanie asked. Her fuzzy memories from the night of the distraction job were enough to tell her she should probably be a little embarrassed and grateful for Tank, but she certainly wasn't happy about the idea of his continued interference. She scoffed angrily, "I swear Connie, if you let him take any of my skips I'm gonna snap off each and every one of those new acrylics. Then I'm gonna take 'em and shove 'em…" She trailed off when Tank appeared, redirecting her wrath in his direction, "did you filch one of my skips?"

Tank paused for a breath and slipped off his sunglasses before answering with a sedate and simple, "no."

"Oh," she seemed to deflate slightly with the word. "Well good. Don't."

"I won't," he answered simply and pointed to the folders she was holding. "But I want to talk about one of your FTA's."

"I'm not a novice you know," she broke into his thought, "I don't need somebody breathing down my neck and checking up on me. So you can mind your own business." Stephanie stuffed her files in her bag and hitched it higher on her shoulder, tucking everything under her arm in a protective gesture. "You've got a lot of nerve looking through my files. It's not like I got hit in the head with a coconut and suddenly forgot what I'm doing here!" Stephanie went on in that vein for a while and Tank listened to it all, even a few insults to his manhood, with a placid, stoic expression. "I'm warning you now, if I ever find out you took one of my files without telling me about it and having a damn good reason, you'll be sorry."

Tank waited to make sure Stephanie had run out of steam before answering, matter-of-factly, "one of your skips is a rapist. That's why I looked through the file. He has a history of disrespecting women and, when the mood strikes him, violent behavior. I wanted to ask if you'd let me ride along when you make the apprehension, but if you have a problem with me then consider taking one of the other guys. Who knows what kind of mood it will put this guy in when you show up at his door with court papers and," he looked at Lula for a second and prefaced, "with no offense meant to either of you, something tells me Lula isn't going to be much of a deterrent to him. Just think about it." He slipped his shades back on and added, "I'd honestly appreciate it if you'd call RangeMan and let one of us know before you make the pick-up, but I can't force you." Then he turned on his heel and calmly exited.

The women were left in a stark silence.

"I think you were a little hard on him Steph," Connie said.

"Girl, that was harsh," Lula agreed.

"You two are the ones who called me over here to report him like he was doing something wrong," she defended herself, indignantly. Connie and Lula both stared at her with raised brows as if to say, '_you'__re not going to __get__ away__ with blaming us_.' Stephanie rolled her eyes at them with a frown and went after Tank. She felt like a heel for snapping at him and making assumptions. She caught up with him several yards down the block. "Hey, I'm sorry. I don't have a problem with you."

"Look, I get it, Steph," he said, the annoyed tone of his voice contradicting the understanding his words assured. "You miss Ranger," he stated like it was undisputed fact, "and you're angry as hell at him too." He held her eye and there was even less sympathy in his tone, "you're not the only one."

"At least you knew he was leaving," she shot back, petulant, suddenly regretting that she'd apologized.

His jaw flexed. "Do you think knowing a few details would make it easier?"

"I think it might make a difference if I thought he cared enough to say goodbye."

Tank recognized a stalemate when he saw one. They were both right. He turned away without another word and climbed behind the wheel of the truck.

"I'll call," Stephanie said quickly, for some reason unwilling to part from him on such a hostile note.

All he did was nod silently again and then drive off.

(1,247 words)

**A/N: Thank you for reading!**


	7. Raincheck

Disclaimer – I do not own the characters, etc. I am only borrowing them from Janet. This is not for profit, just for kicks.

**Ranger's Red Glare – Chapter ****7****  
><strong>By PinPin

_(twelve months and one __week earlier)_

A shining, black F250 pulled up and parked just beyond the collection of response vehicles. An impossible hope fluttered in Stephanie's chest for the barest instant, foolishly imaging that it would be Ranger who emerged. She knew she was being silly, but there was still an involuntary change in the rhythm of her breaths and set of her shoulders. It was the same look that Mary Alice had when she was told her birthday present was waiting for her outside, and then instead of a pony the garage held a tandem bicycle for her and her older, bossy sister.

Tank noticed the change as he got out of the passenger side, motioning to Cal for him to remain in the driver's seat of the idling truck. The day before, Stephanie had called for help with her dangerous skip and he'd been out on another call. Hal went with her instead and reported that the apprehension went well. Now Tank spotted Stephanie leaning slumped against the front end of her car and felt uneasy that it was only the next day when something else had cropped up. He didn't bother with a greeting. "RangeMan picked up on the mention of your name over the police band."

"Well, I'm fine," she said and plunked her giant purse down on the hood beside her. She started digging around in the bag, the sound of various plastics and paper and metals rustling. "I'm just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nothing unusual about that."

There was something strange in the way she spoke. She sounded weak. "What happened?" he asked.

Without looking up from her search she explained, "the electric company was repairing some wires or whatever in the alley behind the house. So when I knocked and Tussman booked it, he ran straight into them out back. He tripped and fell into the wooden safety horses. Broke his neck."

He watched her search become frustrated and asked, "do you need… ?"

"No," she cut him off. Stephanie lifted the bag and gave it a vigorous shake and then set it back down. "I can hear the keys in there; I just can't find them." She sighed and dove back in again. "I called the cops. They're saying he died instantly, just one of those freak things."

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, not a scratch on me," she said. "He was fast. I couldn't keep up with him, so I didn't even see it happen. He was already on the ground when I got to the alley." Her eyes widened and she sagged in momentary relief, pulling her keys out of her bag and shaking them victoriously. "Finally!"

Tank's brows rose and he awkwardly smiled at the abrupt change. There was definitely something off. "Have you given a statement yet?" he asked.

"They'll let me know tomorrow if they need one. The repairmen are making the witness statements. Carl says they'll try to leave my name out of it." She unlocked her door and was tossing her things into the car in a haphazard way.

"If you're done here," Tank said, "let us buy you that drink tonight."

"Thanks, but not tonight. I'm just going to go home and eat ice cream until I pass out."

"That doesn't sound healthy," he lightly chuckled as a contrast to her mood, disliking the cold, detached way she spoke about the man's death and her own reactions.

Stephanie gave her head a small shake with a mild, crooked frown as if she was explaining something simple to a child. "Of course not. If it was healthy, I wouldn't do it."

Tank didn't like that she hadn't really looked up at him yet. "You must have a few other non-bingeing vices you like to indulge after having a rough day. Are any of those on the table as options?"

Still avoiding his eye, she sighed, "I'm sure there are plenty of others and that none of those are healthy either, but I don't really feel up to taking a self inventory at the moment."

Now he knew for sure something was wrong and he had no idea what to do about it. "What would you do with Ranger if he was here?"

Stephanie's movements hesitated for a second at the mention of Ranger. Then she quickly stood from where she'd been fussing with the things she'd pulled from her bag during her quest for keys and turned completely away from Tank, pretending the name had had no effect on her. "We'd stand around until the scene started to clear," she said. Her gaze fell on the dispersing officials and the glowing brake lights of the coroner's van. Tank thought he could hear a regretful note in her voice. "If I cried, he'd hug me. If not he'd pull on my ponytail, call me Babe, and drive away. And _then_ I'd go home and eat ice cream until I passed out."

"Okay, so we'll have ice cream then. It's starting to sound to me like it plays a critical role in your decompression ritual."

"You don't need to try to fill in for him. Truth be told, I never saw much of him anyway and when I did it was quick and we were always working." When she finally addressed him directly, it did away with any doubt that she was upset – tightly wound and fighting back emotion. "I'm not used to having him around, so having him gone isn't really all that different for me."

"Screw Ranger. I'm not his understudy," he replied harshly at the undisguised implication that he was Ranger's runner-up. "Everything isn't always about him."

"You're the one who mentioned him," Stephanie defended herself, "again."

"Maybe I just felt like spending an hour with someone I won't have to give orders to at work in the morning and figured if I could get you to agree, it might do you some good too."

Stephanie studied his face and decided in the end that she didn't care what he meant or how he was feeling. She just wanted to go home. "It's nice of you to offer Tank, really," she settled into the driver's seat and had to crane her neck far back to speak up to him through the open car window, "but I'm tired." She started the engine but before pulling away added, "raincheck, okay. I'll say 'yes' next time."

(1,067 words)

**A/N: Thank you for reading!**


	8. Company

Disclaimer – I do not own the characters, etc. I am only borrowing them from Janet. This is not for profit, just for kicks.

**Ranger's Red Glare – Chapter ****8****  
><strong>By PinPin

(_eleven months and three weeks earlier_)

Stephanie's visits to the bonds office always ran longer than Tank's, what with the gossip and snacking. She was at the tail end of her daily visit when he arrived for his regularly scheduled check-in with Connie. It had been two weeks since they'd seen each other.

While there, he couldn't help but overhear some of what the women had been discussing – a particularly frustrating and evasive FTA – before Stephanie made her exit. He cut his stay even shorter than usual with his own swift departure. Once on the street it wasn't hard for him to catch up with her, his long strides easily overtaking her slower canter. "Want any help with this one?" he asked, gesturing to the single folder she held.

Stephanie glanced over at him as he spoke, which was then followed by a slow, furrowed second glance when the question registered. "With the stakeout?" she confirmed.

Tank nodded.

She was instantly suspicious. "You don't have any important hostages to rescue or crown jewels you need to protect?"

"Nope."

She blinked up at him, half in disbelief and half from the bright, early afternoon sunshine. "You want to sit in a hot car and watch the side lot at Admiral Ben's Fish Fry & Clam Bake in case Gil Larson decides he wants a shrimp and cod combo platter for lunch?"

Tank held back his smile and asked dryly, "will it mean I have to have a combo platter for lunch too?"

Stephanie pulled a disgusted face and chuckled. "No," she asserted with emphasis.

"Then, yeah," Tank shrugged.

Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "Okay."

Tank folded himself into the front passenger seat of her rusted Jetta A2 and they spent a silent ride that was slightly uncomfortable in more than one way.

After about twenty minutes of uneventful surveillance, Stephanie couldn't take the quiet anymore. "He probably won't show. It's just about impossible to predict where he's going to be."

Tank recognized the void-filling chatter for what it was. He couldn't tell if she felt as awkward as he did. The setting was rather removed from what he'd consider familiar territory. A unique blend of the social and professional, stakeouts could easily become enjoyable or torturous. "Why do you think he'll show up here?"

"His weed connection works here. He's unemployed, his family hates him, and he lives out of his car. There aren't a lot of places to look for him, but he's still gonna want his weed."

Tank frowned. "How did he get Vinnie to post his bail?"

"I didn't ask and, honestly, I don't want to know." They both shuttered at the implications.

Ten more minutes passed. They watched a man walk out of the front door with three large bags of food. He dropped one and some of it scattered on the ground. As he replaced the smaller wrapped packages into the larger bag, he collected a few loose fries off the ground and Tank and Stephanie both sucked in a breath. "No, no, man, don't do it," Tank muttered.

The man proceeded to move the fries closer and closer to his mouth and Stephanie looked away in horror, knowing what she'd just missed by the disgusted groan from her right. She groaned herself, "I hate this so much."

Tank chuckled, "even when you have such a lovely view and good company to share it?"

"I'd prefer some air conditioning and a good meal right about now," she grumbled.

One of Tank's eyebrows rose with good-natured skepticism, "you'd trade me for a hearty sandwich?"

"Nah," she answered, then after a moment added, "but some lasagna. Definitely. Probably have a more entertaining conversation with it too."

Tank could see her smile out of the corner of his eye. "And I'm sure it would find your company," he said melodically sardonic, "delightful."

Stephanie's smile softened with a touch of affection. "Of course it would," she answered. "Everyone does."

Grinning, they lapsed into a newly pleasant silence. As it turned out, Stephanie was glad for the company, and so was Tank. But there was one nagging thought she couldn't shake and she eventually mustered the courage to ask, "are you doing this to check up on me?"

He frowned and shifted in his seat. "No."

"Would you tell me if you were?"

"Yes." Tank _wanted_ to tell her that it was a moot point, since he'd never agree to be some kind of unauthorized, long-term guardian for a grown woman, even if it was Stephanie. He sighed, mildly disappointed that she'd suspected it of him. "Any more questions?" he asked with an offended air.

She shot him an incredulous look. It was no secret that Stephanie always had another question. "Is that supposed to be a joke?" she breathed, laughingly.

"No."

"Seriously?"

"If it's on your mind, speak it."

Stephanie was excited at the idea. Rather than sit, waiting, hyper-alert, Tank was requesting that they make conversation. But where to begin… "What's your name?"

"Pierre."

Stephanie let that settle in for a second. She spoke it aloud to hear it with her own voice and while neither of them thought it sounded strange, it did feel a little unnatural. "Are you from Trenton?" was her next question.

"I grew up in Mount Holly."

She nodded and considered her next question, "what's your favorite color?"

"Purple"

Stephanie displayed her surprise before she had a chance to school her features. "Really?"

Tank snickered, "not something I've ever lied about."

"How many weapons are you carrying right now?"

"Two."

She hesitated before her next inquiry, wondering if Tank's limits were similar to Ranger's personal boundaries. "Where do you live?" she asked quietly, hoping that he'd answer.

She needn't have worried. Tank didn't even bat an eye before informing her, "I lived in a fourth floor studio for a long time, but now I have a condo not far from the RangeMan building. It's a lot like the seventh floor apartment."

And just like that, the atmosphere turned awkward as they were both reminded of Ranger and the fact that Stephanie was very familiar with his apartment. The remaining unasked questions dangled in the space between them; the deliberate avoidance of Ranger's name as conspicuous as shouting it. He'd been gone for more than a month and they both knew that the other was thinking about it.

After several tense minutes, Tank had had enough. "I met him in the Army," he said in a grave but gentle tone, "so I've known him for years. Maybe you're not used to spending time with him and not much changes for you when he leaves, but when we're in the same city, I _am_ used to seeing him every day."

Stephanie could hear her heartbeat in her ears and her mind skidded to a halt. It had never once occurred to her that in some way, it might be _her_ who was Ranger's understudy. Turning suddenly to face Tank across the center console, she ordered, "tell me something about you that I'd otherwise never know."

A line appeared between his brows, "what do you mean?"

"Something that I'd never think to ask, that I'd never guess on my own, that would never come up in conversation. Something unimportant that I would never discover about you unless you volunteered the information yourself."

Tank blinked in thought, caught off guard by the request. It took him longer than Stephanie expected to form a response. "I'm left-handed," he said, "but I use my right hand when I eat with chopsticks because the person who taught me how was right-handed."

Stephanie grinned like a fool, starting to like Tank more than she'd thought she would. Then she shared her own personal detail. "When I was seven I had one of those little notebooks for collecting autographs, only instead of asking people to sign it I would ask animals. I'd press a paw from one of the neighborhood cats or dogs on an ink pad and put the print in the little book. I thought it was more impressive than getting people's signatures because people had hands and wrote their names all time, but animals didn't, which meant their signatures were rare and more valuable."

There was a split second of delayed reaction before Tank's booming guffaw filled the car.

(1,384 words)

**A/N: Thank you for reading!**


	9. The Kid

Disclaimer – I do not own the characters, etc. I am only borrowing them from Janet. This is not for profit, just for kicks.

**Ranger's Red Glare – Chapter ****9****  
><strong>By PinPin

_(eleven months and two weeks earlier)_

The thumping base was throbbing in his head, inescapable even in the back employee lot. It had been a year or two since Tank had found anything enjoyable about nightclubs. Maybe it was dragging one deviant after another out of side exits that made the crowds and the atmosphere lose their appeal. Maybe he was just getting old.

This distraction job had taken an especially long time to complete. The skip didn't show at the scheduled time and Stephanie had to play the 'bait and wait' game for almost two hours. Tank couldn't see what was happening inside, but from the audio over the microphone it sounded like a skeeze decathlon as she rebuffed one man after another. By the time they were bundling up their target and hauling him away, he figured she'd be tired and cranky and desperate to get home.

He looked around for Stephanie without success. "Where's Stephanie?" he asked Manny and Hal, the last two RangeMan left on site, as they prepared to leave with the latest in the long line of slimey skips.

"I think she went back inside to talk to that kid," Hal said with a questioning glance at Manny, who nodded in agreement.

"What kid?" Tank asked.

"That kid who hit on her," Hal said. "He was making eyes at her all night."

Manny laughed. "She was smiling back an awful lot too, at least until she gave him the brush when the skip showed up, but I think she might have liked this one."

Tank frowned. "Did you catch his name? Description?"

Hal thought for a moment. "He said Jason or Mason or something. He was young. Twenty-one or twenty-two, dirty blonde, dark clothes."

Back inside the club, Tank prowled through noise and heat and bodies in search of Stephanie. Finally catching the sound of her laughter, he turned to find her just to the side of the bar, sipping a drink and standing very close to a man with a bright smile and warm, dark eyes that seemed to see nothing but her.

He was almost on top of them before they noticed the new arrival. "Tank?" she asked with surprise.

The boy-scout stepped between them in an instant of alarm. "Do you know this guy?" he asked Stephanie.

Tank didn't even look at him. "She does," he said, reaching around him for Stephanie and pulling her away. "Excuse us for a second."

"Hey," she exclaimed, angry that his strength gave her no real option to resist.

When they were far enough away not to be overheard, he stopped and turned to her. His piercing glare was pure accusation.

"What?" she demanded angrily, annoyed at the intrusion and his possessive display.

"You don't think there's anything wrong with this?" Tank gestured to the club and the dozens of suitors he knew would be only too happy to take Stephanie home with them.

Mildly confused, she asked, "wrong with what?"

He stared. "And I thought you were still so angry and hurt because you actually cared."

She yanked her arm away from him. "What is your problem?"

"A month and a half? That's as long as you could wait?"

She sucked in a breath as if he'd hit her. "Wait?"

"Did you lose hope already or are you horny?" he almost sneered. "Or maybe you're just bored."

Fury crept a heated path up the back of Stephanie's neck. "Do you have any idea what you're even talking about?" she yelled over the loud music. Twenty minutes with a Mojito and a handsome, flirtatious undergrad had swelled Stephanie's ego with enough Dutch courage and feminine pride to take the intimidation out of a confrontation with Tank. She didn't care what he thought. "I bet you don't," she hissed at him. "I bet he tells you as little about me as he tells me about you and you don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about!"

For an instant Tank looked like he felt guilty, but it passed as quickly as it occurred.

She impatiently stuck her hands on her hips. "What do you want?"

"You left your stuff in my car." He held up her purse. "I was your ride here, remember?" He reached into her bag and fished out her phone.

Stephanie made a grab for it, but he held it out of her reach. "Hey," she protested.

He entered a number into the phone and handed it back. "The number of a good cab company is in your phone. Use it if you're going to be drinking with Prince Charming Jr. over there."

"Yeah, alright," she snatched her phone from him, "are we done?"

"Take this." He tried to hand her several folded bills, but when she wouldn't accept the cash he reached out and tucked it into her neck line before she could stop him.

She batted his hand away. "I don't need your money."

"Take it tonight," he insisted firmly like he was reprimanding a child, "and pay me back the next time we see each other. I'm not leaving Miss Tipsy Trenton alone here to get drunk with a strange man unless I'm sure you have enough cash for the cab home."

"Fine," Stephanie snapped. She just wanted him gone already. "Are you done now?"

A muscle flexed in Tank's jaw. He looked like he was anything but done. "Please keep your panic button on you," he requested in a tone the brooked no refusal, "and call me first thing tomorrow so that I know he hasn't locked you in a basement somewhere." Then without waiting for her answer, he simply turned and left.

Stephanie tried to collect herself as she watched his back disappear into the crowd. She was unsettled by the exchange, unused to such harsh treatment and disapproval from any of the Rangemen. She returned to her companion, still slightly dazed. "Sorry."

He ordered her a fresh drink. "Who was that?" he asked concerned, with a glance in the direction Tank had exited.

"A friend of a friend," she answered. Stephanie gave herself a gentle shake to throw off the last of her disquiet. She smiled alluringly and ordered, "forget him."

*RRG*RRG*RRG*

Nine hours later, Tank's phone buzzed and the text message read: '_home & safe -SP_'.

(1,045 words)

**A/N: Thank you**** for reading!**


	10. Regrets & Giggles

Disclaimer – I do not own the characters, etc. I am only borrowing them from Janet. This is not for profit, just for kicks.

previously:  
><em>Nine hours later, Tank's phone buzzed and the text message read: '<em>_home & safe -SP__'._

**Ranger's**** Red Glare – Chapter 10  
><strong>By PinPin

Tank frowned. A text message wasn't what he'd had in mind when he asked for a call. He pressed reply.

Stephanie groaned when she heard the ringtone, but answered right away, sounding far less than pleased, "what do you want now?"

Tank was careful not to let his tone become as challenging as hers. "I asked you to call me."

"And I did."

"A text and a call are not the same thing."

"Okay, so now you're hearing my voice on the line," she rolled her eyes and then nearly growled through clenched teeth, "satisfied?"

There was a significant pause followed by an audible sigh. "Whatever problem we had last night, we need to get past it."

"The problem was that you were acting like a dick," she snapped. "Just avoid that in future and we'll be fine."

Another pause followed. Tank regretted that he was almost entirely to blame for this new hostility between them, and he wanted to fix it. "You've never done that before," he said, "going back into the bar after a distraction."

"So?"

"Obviously, I didn't know how to handle it."

"Yes, obviously!"

"Usually Ranger is in charge and I don't have to worry about that kind of thing."

Stephanie would have laughed if his explanation had been any more _inadequate_. "So the solution you decided on was to barge in and pull me around and insult me?" she asked.

"I'm trying to apologize here," he shot back, no longer able to hold his cool in the wake of her vocal condemnation.

"Well…" she said, imagining the look on his face, all pinched and frowny and discontent, and just for a second she smiled through a silent giggle before recomposing herself, "you're terrible at it." Her voice might have cracked a tiny bit at the end, but she didn't think he heard it.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, sounding so earnest.

But Stephanie wasn't ready to let it go yet. "For what?" she asked. She didn't get to serve up crow very often and she wanted to hear Tank take a big, old bite out of it.

"For all I know he was a really nice kid."

Pursing her lips with renewed annoyance she replied, "maybe it's me, but that sounds an awful lot like something a dick would say."

Tank tried again. "Most of all I'm sorry that I pulled your arm when I wanted to talk to you. I know how much you hate that but I didn't stop long enough to think about it and I did it anyway. I didn't even try asking first." There was a slight pause before he asked quietly, as if he was afraid of the answer, "did I hurt you?"

The majority of her irritation slipped away at the sound of his voice. For a man his size, he'd actually been very gentle. "No, not physically."

"You should have told me that you were going back inside."

"So this was all my fault?" she huffed.

"No, that's not what…" he trailed off with a huff of his own. _Damn, she can be so frustrating_, he thought. "In the future," he patiently began again, "you should tell me if you're going to do that. We're all on hyper-defense when we're working and it's not easy to just turn that off. I go into a distraction job with the mindset that I have to protect you from what's waiting inside and at the end of the night leaving you there with someone we didn't know was harder than I expected."

Stephanie considered that for a moment, and decided that maybe it had been a little short-sighted of her to just head back into the bar without letting Tank know where she was going. "I've never been on your side of the microphone," she conciliated.

She liked the way his tone was lighter, and less worried, as he asked, "was that _your_ way of apologizing?"

"No!" she immediately answered. "It's an explanation."

"Well," he said, "explanation accepted."

There was a longer than usual pause and Stephanie wondered for a moment if he had hung up the phone like Ranger would have. But then she heard a breath. "Silence without hanging up would indicate you have something more to say," she meditated aloud.

"No," he said without conviction, "not really."

"I think you do."

"It's nothing."

"Just spit it out, Tank," she insisted with good humor and a smile that could be heard. "It can't be worse than having to apologize to me and besides, if you don't tell me now I'll just get pissed all over again."

"Did you sleep with that guy?" he asked, horrified with himself as the words left his lips. _What the hell is wrong with me_, he thought. That wasn't what he wanted to say. A moment ago he was thinking about asking her to meet him for lunch to sign some papers she hadn't seen to the previous evening, not whether or not she'd had a spectacular night moaning the name of a man at least ten years younger.

_Click._

Tank groaned, "shit." She'd hung up.

Stephanie's stared at the closed phone in her hand and her blood re-boiled. She almost threw it in a fit of pique, but stopped at the last second, knowing that if she needed a new RangeMan compatible phone, she'd have to see Tank to get it. Then she almost threw it a second time when she heard Tank's ringtone begin to chime, furious that he had the nerve to call her again. After a moment of thought she answered, and immediately started talking. "Is this like some kind of guy honor code thing that you need to ensure his woman stays pure in his absence?" she shouted. "Because if that's the case you can forget it, it's none of your damn business! Even if you think it is, it wouldn't matter. I'm not involved with Ranger. I'm not _his woman_. We are not, and have never been, a couple. He's given me reasons why it would never happen and despite the fact I tried my best not to believe any of them, I can't keep fooling myself. It gets clearer to me all the time. Leaving without telling me was finally enough to convince me that whatever the hell it is he's talking about when he says that his life doesn't lend itself it relationships, he's telling the absolute truth. So I'm not holding my breath! And if he's your best friend or not, I don't deserve to get lectured by you! As if I was doing something wrong, as if there's some great guy out there who is holding his breath for me! Because he's not! So why would I? And why would any of it have a fucking thing to do with you?"

_Click_.

Tank tried to digest everything he'd just heard. It was a lot to take in. In his mind, Stephanie had always belonged to Ranger, as much as his company or his cars. He'd never questioned it. But he could see that there was more to it than that. There were a lot of questions and some apparently very strong emotions whirling around this subject. What exactly did Stephanie mean by 'involved' and what was she saying about Ranger telling the truth that they'd never be together? Stephanie had been right. Ranger never told him about any of that.

This time when Stephanie answered his returning call, she didn't say a word. She wanted to hear his response. She wanted to know what would possess him to call her a _third_ time.

"You're right," he spit out immediately, afraid she's start shouting again."It is none of my business."

"I did," she impulsively revealed, unsure why she was even doing it. "I slept with him."

Tank's breath left him in a _whoosh_ and he was speechless.

"That club was full of younger, prettier women," she continued, "but he was interested in me. I let it go to my head a little. It was flattering. Even after I turned him down, left with another guy, came back, and explained that I was a bounty hunter…" she hesitated, "he was still interested."

"You don't have to explain," Tank croaked, hoping she'd stop.

Stephanie gave her head a silent shake. She wasn't apologizing or explaining. She had this urge to tell him, not to make him understand what she did, but to somehow help him understand something about _her_. "I haven't had a decent guy, you know, properly pursue me in any traditional sense since I was in college. He reminded me of that and… well the attention was nice."

"Stephanie – "

"The thing is I'm not twenty anymore," she ignored him and went on, "I forgot how bad college guys are in bed. I'm pretty sure he was looking for some kind of Mrs. Robinson experience where I'd give him some no-strings lessons about pleasuring women. Heaven knows he could have used a few."

At that point Stephanie didn't know what else to say or whether or not to regret what she'd already said. An extended silence followed, which Tank finally broke with the short, faint breath of a chuckle. "I know I asked, but in the future, if I'm ever stupid enough to ask you about your sexual partners again, please do me a solid and just tell me to get bent. I don't know why I asked; I certainly didn't want to know."

Stephanie smiled on her end. "It sounds a little to me like we both just want to forget last night ever happened."

"Yeah," Tank agreed. Then on a cresting wave of laughter he asked, "was he that bad?"

"Yeah, he was that bad," she answered in disbelief that he'd brought it up a second time only moments after they'd agreed to forget it. "I think it might have only been his second or third time having sex," she said. "He wanted to play with my boobs a lot."

His groan was audible. "Please, stop now."

"If you didn't really want to know, then you shouldn't have asked… _again_." Stephanie chortled, "he only lasted five minutes. Then he actually asked me how many times I came because he said he couldn't tell." She barely heard his reply over her own raucous laughter.

"Okay," Tank declared, his tone indicating he might be in some kind of physical pain. "This call is over."

Tank disconnected and Stephanie rolled with laughter, her disappointing night now transformed from a disheartening, failed tryst which had made her feel old and slightly pathetic, into a little slice of funny self-depreciation and a newly discovered way to tease and torment Tank.

(1,782 words)

**A/N: Thank you for reading!**


	11. Abrasion

Disclaimer – I do not own the characters, etc. I am only borrowing them from Janet. This is not for profit, just for kicks.

**Ranger's Red Glare – Chapter 1****1****  
><strong>By PinPin

_(eleven months and one week earlier)_

Stephanie was pulling open the passenger door of Tank's truck before it had even come to a complete stop on the shoulder.

"Oh my god," he gasped the second he saw her. There was blood and dirt on her face and her clothing was ragged and stained. A large, screaming patch of raw skin stole down the side of her jaw from her ear to her neck. The palm of her left hand was torn, the jagged, bloody wound full of gravel and debris.

"It looks worse than it is," she said quickly but calmly.

"What happened?" he asked. When she'd called to ask for help with an emergency, he hadn't thought it included immediate medical attention.

"My skip attacked me and pushed me out of the car while I was driving."

Tank reached out to push her hair aside and inspect the damage, but Stephanie pulled back with a hiss. "Why didn't you call an ambulance?" he demanded, more confused than angry.

"I don't need one."

"For fuck's sake, Stephanie – "

Stephanie interrupted him impatiently, "trust me to know the difference between scratches and a broken bone and please focus right now!"

He hesitated. He wanted to argue. But he trusted her, as well as the look of pure determination on her face. "What do you need?" he asked as he pulled back into traffic.

Stephanie nodded and relaxed in relief. Ranger would have argued (and for that matter, probably so would have Tank if Ranger was in town at the time). Ranger would have let the guy go, forced her to go to the hospital, and then tried to give her a new car that no doubt would have more security installed in it than the Pope-mobile.

Stephanie rummaged through the glove compartment, coming up with some first aid items to clean her wounds as they drove. "I know Ranger plants bugs and trackers on me without telling me," she said. Tank glanced over at her and she asserted, "don't deny it; just tell me that you can activate them or whatever and trace my car."

"Yes." He touched-screened his way through the truck's GPS menus and pulled up a map with a set of two, blinking red dots. "Your car and your purse," Tank explained and stepped on the gas. "He's still moving but he's not too far to catch up to him. Tell me everything that happened."

It took them an hour to track Stephanie's A2 to a pair of poorly maintained public housing structures. Once there, it took another hour and a considerable amount of Tank's 'persuasive abilities' to learn in which unit their skip was hiding. As the typical sequence of events unfolded – angry shouting, door crashing, fists flying, cuffs snapping – Tank was more directly involved in the capture than Stephanie would have liked; very hands on with a brutal, implacable intensity. He gave the guy a licking until he nearly stopped ticking, and ultimately Stephanie literally had to pull him away.

"Stop, Tank, you're gonna kill him!" she shouted as she grabbed his arm. He stopped as ordered and retreated as Stephanie took over, but he still moved restlessly on the other side of the room like a boxer waiting for the bell to start the next round.

By the time they had their fugitive trussed up in the car, Stephanie couldn't hide her drowsiness any longer. She sagged, heavily and loosely into her seat and closed her eyes wearily. Tank was watching her closely and shrewdly asked, "where did you hit your head?"

"It's not bad," she brushed away his concern.

But his concern couldn't be diverted. He reached out and firmly ran his fingers through her hair, feeling her scalp and the place where a large knot had already grown.

"Ouch, _damnit_," she winced and tried to shove him away.

"A head injury is even worse than a broken bone," he barked irritably, annoyed with her for not mentioning it and himself for not insisting they see to her sores earlier. "I'll take you to the emergency room and drop him off while you're getting checked out."

"I'm not going to the hospital," she declared. "I need to keep an eye on him. I don't know if I can I trust you not to finish him off on the way."

Tank stared at her from where he stood, leaning into the passenger side of the truck with one hand still gently cradling her head. "That's such a lame excuse. Did you think that was going to work?"

"All I need are some bandages and ice," she tried again, sheepishly.

"For a head injury? No way, Babe, you're going to the hospital for tests."

They both froze, eyes locked on one another. They were thinking the same thing; it was chilling what that one word could do. _Babe_. Tank felt unreal, as if it had been someone else who'd said it.

Stephanie thought from Tank's expression that he might be about to apologize again and she didn't want that. It seemed to her like they were apologizing to each other a lot and that what it really all boiled down to was that it was mostly Ranger's fault. He was the reason they were in these awkward situations, ignorant and unsure about how to act around each other, trying to somehow be respectful of Ranger's thoughts and feelings while he was away, all the while never knowing what it was he thought or felt about anything. Why should they be the ones continually making amends to each other because of it?

"You know what? It's good," she said, never breaking from their gaze. "I need to hear that. He doesn't own the word and I can't go the rest of my life expecting other people not to use it."

Tank nodded and his hand slowly fell away from her. "Makes sense." He moved around to the driver's side and climbed in. Before starting the engine he crept through the awkward silence, "it did feel a little weird though, right?"

"Yeah," Stephanie agreed. She laughed gently, "yeah, it did."

The tension dispelled, Tank shot her a small smile and turned the ignition, "I'm not going to do that again."

"Okay, sure," Stephanie smiled back. "I'm good with that too."

They both nodded, coming to the tacit agreement that it wasn't a rule he couldn't call her 'Babe,' but rather that he wouldn't because he didn't really like doing it anyway.

(1,077 words)

**A/N: Thank you**** for reading!**


	12. Invitations, 1

Disclaimer – I do not own the characters, etc. I am only borrowing them from Janet. This is not for profit, just for kicks.

**Ranger's Red Glare – Chapter 12****  
><strong>By PinPin

_(eleven months earlier)_

The SUV was parked across the street from Plum Bail Bonds. Engrossed in the file he'd just been handed, Lester Santos didn't immediately notice that the vehicle was still stationary. Several minutes elapsed before he looked up and glanced around, "what's going on?"

Tank didn't answer.

"What are we doing?" Lester asked.

"Waiting," Tank distractedly mumbled in response.

"For what?"

Again, Tank didn't answer.

"For what?" he repeated, impatiently.

"Stephanie."

Lester studied Tank beside him. He was acting strangely. "What for?" he wanted to know.

The scrutiny annoyed Tank. "To talk to her," he explained. Other than her occasional emergency, crossing paths with Stephanie at the bonds office was the only time he ever saw her. She'd stopped coming around to RangeMan. The only work she did for them these days was the odd distraction, and after the last one, he wasn't looking forward to the next.

"So call her on the phone," Lester suggested.

He'd considered it, but like their argument at the club, their telephone conversation the next morning was another experience he wasn't keen to repeat so soon. He knew that she'd only said as much as she did on the phone because she didn't have to look him in the face when she said it. "I have some documents for her," he gave the truth a firm stretch.

Lester frowned and shortly ordered, "leave them with Connie." Tank didn't move. "We have shit to do," Lester insisted, but it only solicited more silence from Tank. "She could be in there all day."

"She won't be," Tank finally answered.

Lester thought Tank seemed more certain of that than he ought to be and unease rippled over his skin. "You know her work load for the day don't you?"

Tank shifted in his seat, but wouldn't confirm the assumption.

"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded.

"I've already told you," Tank nearly growled. "We're waiting."

"You dumbass," Lester snapped with all the force of the strong sense of déjà vu he was feeling. "This is how _he_ used to be. Remember?"

Tank rolled his eyes. "Don't get your panties in a knot."

Although he'd missed the incident himself, Lester had heard Hal's account of what had happened after the last distraction – the other guy Stephanie was talking to and the argument she and Tank had had about it. "You're acting the same way," Lester declared. "Waiting around, changing priorities, moody, preoccupied..."

"Mind your own business."

Tank was always on the edge of a bad temper when Ranger was on missions. He didn't hide how he felt; he wanted to be out there with him, not steering the ship at home. So Lester was used to the crankiness and irritability, but it wasn't like Tank to be this defensive. "Did you sleep with her?"

Turning in his seat, Tank warned in a low, dangerous tone, "Shut. Up."

With his insinuation, Lester had pushed Tank an inch too far. More than likely he would pay dearly for it in the gym for the next week, but that wasn't enough of a threat to make him hold his tongue. "_Never_ screw around with someone's woman when he's in the wind. I can't believe I even have to say that to you!"

"Calm down, Santos," Tank ordered. "I know what I'm doing _and_ what I'm _not_ doing." At times, Tank and Ranger's friendship/partnership could be as equally complicated as all of Ranger's other relationships, but when it came to matters involving Stephanie, the last two months had convinced Tank that being friendly with her was not a betrayal.

Living in Ranger's shadow wasn't a bad place to be and Tank would be the first to testify to it. Ranger was the best. He didn't have any setting other than high; he worked the hardest and longest and was compensated accordingly. But even from his position out in front of the pack, he never forgot the others who were always one step behind him making it all possible. As a leader, Ranger had changed what Tank considered possible. As a man, however, it was more difficult to bestow admiration. The same qualities that made it gratifying to work with Ranger, made it a challenge to live with him. That was no less true in Stephanie's case and Tank was in the unique position to know a little about how and why she might have as great a need for a friendly ear as he did.

A movement caught his attention and Tank saw Stephanie emerge from the office. He handed Lester the keys to the SUV and got out of the car. Leaning down to speak into the open window, he cautioned, "when it comes to Ric and Stephanie, he never even gave _me_ the whole story, so don't act like you know where the line has been drawn. I don't think anyone does. And even if I had intentions, do you honestly believe that if there's a line, wherever the line is, Stephanie's the kind of woman who'd just stand by and let me cross it?"

Lester couldn't deny the truth of Tank's observations, but that didn't mean he was satisfied by his rationalizations. Tank was playing with fire.

A small, involuntary smile brightened Stephanie's face when she spotted Tank headed in her direction. "Hi," she greeted.

"Have you had lunch?" he asked when he reached her.

"No."

"Neither have I."

Stephanie waited for him to go on. When it was clear that that was all he was planning to say, she asked, "are you waiting for me to cook a meal or was that supposed to be some kind of invitation?"

Tank chuckled, "yeah."

"Yeah, what?" she asked with one hand firmly planted on hip.

It was the perfect brand of cheerful sass to remedy the aggravation that had built up during his wait in the SUV. "Do you want to grab a bite?" he clarified his invitation.

Her brow furrowed as she sized up his request. "Why?"

Tank sighed. What kind of reason did she think he could have? "Why not?" he rebutted. She stared at him expectantly until he wondered aloud, "does there always have to be a reason?"

Stephanie's eyes cut from the spectators in the bond office's window to the SUV still idling across the street. "Yes," she answered.

"We're both in need of sustenance?" he shrugged. "Since when do you turn down a meal, Steph?"

She quirked her pursed lips thoughtfully and asked, "are you buying?"

Tank glanced back at the window where the other women practically had their faces pressed against the glass. He'd noticed Stephanie eyeing them. "That depends. Are you planning to stick your head back inside the door at the last second and ask Lula and Connie to come along too?"

Stephanie smiled brilliantly and her sudden joyous laughter rang out along the street. "I don't have to."

"Then lunch is on me," Tank mirrored her grin.

(1,156 words)

**A/N: Thank**** you for reading!  
><strong>[tbc... within the week]


	13. Invitations, 2

Disclaimer – I do not own the characters, etc. I am only borrowing them from Janet. This is not for profit, just for kicks.

previously:  
>"<em>Then lunch is on me," Tank mirrored her grin.<em>

**Ranger's Red Glare – Chapter 1****3****  
><strong>By PinPin

The McTavish Grill was busiest in the front of the restaurant near the bar, leaving the booths in the back, where Tank and Stephanie were seated, with more privacy and less noise. They had ordered and returned their menus to the waitress when Stephanie asked, "so, what's going on?"

Tank watched her anxiously shred the wrapper from her straw and smiled encouragingly in an attempt to ease her nerves. "Not much," he said. "What's happening with you?"

Befuddled and mildly unsettled by his interest, Stephanie frowned.

Disregarding her continuing doubt, Tank relaxed and casually asked, "if an old friend of my dad's is getting remarried but I'm not going to the wedding, I still have to send a gift right?"

The question wasn't what Stephanie expected to hear. She blinked for a second. "This is your dad's friend?"

Tank nodded.

"And he's getting _re_married?"

Another nod.

None of this was clarifying the situation for Stephanie. "Well, were you invited?"

"Yeah, of course, but I can't go."

"And you don't even want to send them a gift?" she questioned with disapproval.

"It's not that I don't want to, but I wasn't sure if it was expected. It is, isn't it? Good manners, right?"

Stephanie laughed into her Coke and held up a finger as she struggled to choke in a clean breath. "You're buying me lunch to ask my advice about wedding gift etiquette?" she gasped with soft laughter. "Me?"

Tank rolled his eyes. Why couldn't she believe this was just a simple meal? "Lunch is because I'm hungry, but since you're in front of me I figured I'd get a woman's opinion."

She considered him for a silent minute. So far, she had no specific reason to distrust Tank. He'd always been straight forward with her, even when it pissed her off. There was no basis for her to suspect his explanation of a friendly lunch would be any different. Except they weren't really friends… of course, they weren't _not_ friends either. Stephanie felt something happening beyond her. Not far below the surface, there was something going on with Tank. She couldn't make heads or tails of it, but she was comfortable with him. She was having a good time. She decided not to stress over it. Plus, she was getting a free lunch, so there was that.

"Well, you don't ever necessarily _have_ to send a gift," she informed him. Abandoning scraps of paper debris, fidgeting patterns, and tapping rhythms, her fingers relaxed and joined her voice in its effort to get her message across. "But you should," she said with an improvised air of authority. "They're getting married and the gift is to congratulate them. Your dinner plans for the night of the reception have nothing to do with that. How do you know the couple?"

"Joy's first husband, Richmond, grew up with my dad. He was like an honorary uncle."

"I have an Uncle Doug like that who was in the army with my dad."

"Exactly," Tank nodded. "Uncle Rich passed away almost six years ago. Aunt Joy is getting remarried. Everyone is invited."

"Are you still close with them?" She selected a warm roll and offered the bread basket to Tank.

"My parents are, but I've only met the new guy a few times," Tank explained distractedly as he chose his own piece of bread and tore it in half. "Marty, his name's Marty."

"Do you not like him?" she asked gently, as curious about his answers as she was about why he was giving them to her so freely.

"No," he quickly denied, "he seems nice enough to me, but, you know, nothing special. Although I might be biased; Rich was always my favorite uncle."

Stephanie didn't reply, but smiled encouragingly for him to continue. She was flummoxed to hear Tank so oddly loquacious. It was like a bizarre spell she was afraid to break.

"He was a drummer and he had this big drum set in his basement that he'd always let me play around with," he recalled with a distant nostalgia. "It used to drive my mom nuts. That'll win the heart of any five year old."

"I didn't know you're a drummer," she remarked with a curious tilt of her head.

"That's because I'm not, never was, and probably never will be."

"He never taught you to play? I thought that was why people made their kids take piano; it's easier to learn that stuff when you're young. At least that's what my mother used to shout when I tried to skip out on my piano lessons."

"No," he shrugged the matter away. "No, I definitely can't play any instruments. I was just really good at hitting things with a stick. I guess I've always loved loud noise and chaos." Tank leaned forward with his elbows on the table and the force of his eye contact pulsed with a smidge more intensity than he'd intended or than Stephanie was prepared to see.

She ducked her head and changed the subject, "when's the wedding?"

"Six weeks from Sunday."

A small, warm mass growing in her chest felt lighter than the air surrounding them as he continued to answer her questions, not only without reluctance, but almost hurriedly, as if he couldn't wait for her to ask the next one. "Why aren't you going?"

"Have to work," was all he said.

With a knowing quirk of her lips she asked, "you can't ask for the day off?" Tank was in charge at RangeMan for the time being. A month was more than enough time to make an opening in his schedule.

"My boss is a real hard ass," he told her with a grin.

"Not a fan of weddings, huh?"

Tank's only response was one raised eyebrow and a glowering look through lowered lashes as he chewed a large bite of sourdough.

Stephanie spied an opening for some fun. "That's odd," she commented lightly, "you seem like a wedding kind of guy."

"What kind of guy is that?" he asked curiously. Tank liked the playful light in her expression.

"I could see you in a tux," she ribbed him offhandedly, "ruffled powder blue polyester, or maybe apricot." She giggled at the way his jaw almost fell while he was trying to eat, causing him to clear his throat in an uncomfortable way. "I bet you'd make great toasts. Do you give really good best man speeches? Are you that sweet guy who makes all the mothers in the room get teary-eyed and discretely ask around if you're already taken?"

Tank frowned for show, but it was obvious it was covering up a smile.

"So do you prefer the Macarena or the Electric Slide or is it just too hard to choose?" She schooled her expression and leaned forward onto the table, mirroring his posture, asking with a concerned, sober regard, "Tank, do you boot, scoot, _and_ boogie?"

"You left out the Hustle," he answered.

"Oh no, I already had you pegged for a hustler," she struggled to hold in the giggle, "and I bet you love the Chicken Dance too, right?"

Tank finally broke. He laughed and shook his head.

"Go on," she prodded, "give me a little beak action." She held up her hands and flexed her thumb and closed fingers, mimicking a bird's beak. "You know you want to."

Tank froze at the sight. Her curls were bouncing around her head as the rest of her bounced happily in her seat, dancing and laughing. He held her eye, smile fading, his breathing deep and even. It prickled the fine hairs on the back of Stephanie's neck. She swallowed thickly and lost some of her momentum.

Then, one split second before the mood turned serious, Tank held up his hands and mimed the anticipated snapping beaks. "Na-nah, na-nah, na-nah, nah," he recited in a decidedly unenthusiastic fashion.

He tucked his thumbs in his armpits, flapped his elbows four times, no more no less, and repeated, "na-nah, na-nah, na-nah, nah."

Then with fists and arms locked at his sides he wiggled in his seat and gave one last, "na-nah, na-nah, na-nah, nah" with slightly more _oomph_ than the first two.

Finally, he paused at the end and waited expectantly. It took Stephanie a second, but she shook off her momentary shock and clapped her hands to finish the tune's four concluding beats. "Amazing," was all she could say. She could hardly believe what she'd witnessed, it was even better than a dream. It took determined effort for Stephanie to recover from the sight, but once she'd regained the power of intelligent speech, Stephanie proudly claimed "I knew it! Pierre is a dancer!"

Tank winced slightly and then held his breath when it registered that she'd called him by his name. If Stephanie had been thinking clearer she'd have noticed his audible swallow. "All I get are four claps?" he asked, although his thoughts were not concerned in the least with applause.

"Are you kidding," she cried, "I'm tempted to give you a standing ovation."

"Must not have been that good if you're only tempted," he muttered with a cute as hell, 'aw, shucks' flavored pout and smiling eyes.

Her already radiant smile grew even wider. "Bravo, _bravo_." Jumping to her feet, she shouted, "molto bello." She applauded long enough to ensure she had the attention of everyone within earshot and then suggested loudly, "encore?"

Tank pointed forcefully at her chair. "Sit down."

Stephanie sank back into her seat and was watching him with a thoughtful expression.

"What?" he asked.

"I like giving you a hard time way more than I expected to."

He didn't tell her, but the feeling was mutual. Tank enjoyed her teasing as much as she did. What had started as a way to occupy his mind when Ranger's large office began to feel _too_ large, was slowly becoming something else. The more time Tank spent with Stephanie, the more he understood what had ensnared Ranger's attention so quickly and fully.

They were both distracted momentarily when their food arrived, but as soon as the server retreated, Stephanie mischievously clinked her fork against her glass and waited for the reaction.

Tank couldn't hide his amusement. "You didn't get an encore so now – "

"I want a toast," she interrupted. "Yes."

He obliged and genially raised his glass. "To the unexpected," he said.

"To the unexpected," Stephanie immediately agreed and gently touched her glass to his.

(1,744 words)

**A/N: Thank you for reading****!  
><strong>*A special Thank You to Lori for a correction/feedback. Great readers always make for better writers.


	14. The Dilemma

Disclaimer – I do not own the characters, etc. I am only borrowing them from Janet. This is not for profit, just for kicks.

previously:  
><em>Stephanie didn't back away or back down. "You weren't here Ranger. You disappeared. What exactly of mine is it you think you have that others could take from you?" <em>_Suddenly desperate to know the true extent of the distance that now lay between them, Ranger bluntly asked, "Are you sleeping with Tank?"__Her spine straight and her voice steady, Stephanie told Ranger, "I'm in love with him." __With those five simple words – __I'm in love with him__ – the bruise on Ranger's soul sank deeper and became a wound._

**Ranger's Red Glare – Chapter 1****4****  
><strong>By PinPin

_(Present Day, cont'd)_

Ranger stared at her with unseeing eyes. She was supposed to say, '_no'_. She was supposed to be angry at the question and tug at her hair or slap him for even asking. She was supposed to tell him, '_of course not, I would never sleep with Tank, he's your best friend and I'm in love with you_.' She was supposed to tell him that she loved seeing him, that she loved the fact he was home. Stephanie was supposed to love _him_.

Not Tank. Ranger could recognize only one, strong, clear thought. _Not Tank_.

His voice didn't sound like his own as he asked, "since when?"

Stephanie shrugged one hand. "I don't have an exact time and date. It just happened. This past year wasn't easy for us."

"But it was easy for me?" he furiously snapped.

"No, I didn't say that," she immediately denied. There was an unfamiliar set to his features, softer and older than she remembered, that made Stephanie suspect this was the first candid conversation they'd ever had. This was what it finally took to get Ranger to let down his guard and reveal that he was human. If Stephanie hadn't loved him for as long as she had, she would have hated him for it. "I know it was hard on everyone," she continued, "but for Tank this was – "

"Am I supposed to feel sorry for him?" Ranger interupted with a low growl. He balled his fists in outraged disbelief, unconsciously trying to grasp a semblance of regularity, attempting to pull out of thin air some vestige of their once heady passion so that he might use it to bridge the chasm that lie between the cautiously hopeful life he'd left behind and the grimly disarrayed one he was confronting now.

Fragmented memories of the best and worst moments Stephanie had shared with Tank were tumbling through her fury and told her that, no, he didn't need pity. Intimate knowledge of him – of his strength and power and of the weak and glorious parts of himself his deep voice had gently confessed to her – ensured she'd never expect nor accept that for Tank. He deserved better and she was disappointed that Ranger couldn't see that. "I thought you might have a little compassion for the partner who has gone month after month looking after the life you left behind, all the while knowing there was a good chance he'd never see his best friend again."

Ranger didn't want to believe what he was hearing. Did she think there was any less uncertainty and fear about the future for him where he had been? He wanted to scream at the stark injustice of it. So he did. "I don't care who he is; the guy who's been fucking you while I was gone can go to hell!"

The swell of righteous anger she felt on Tank's behalf no longer surprised her. "You should be thanking him for what he's done for you!"

"Thank him?" Ranger wanted to grab her and shake her and ask what the hell was wrong with her. What had happened to the Stephanie he knew inside and out and never so much as hesitated to take his side in anything and everything? What kind of backwards logic made Ranger the villain and Tank an innocent victim? "That son of a bitch looked me straight in the eye and smiled when he welcomed me home!"

"Of course he did."

"And then used his next breath to lie to my face."

"None of this was a secret. Tank's no more a liar than the rest of your men who didn't tell you about this when you got back," she avowed. "He kept his promises to you, all of them, and the reason he did was so that he _could_ still bring himself to look you in the eye the next time you saw each other."

Ranger's chest heaved in its struggle to contain a deluge of choler. "So he wasn't willing to completely write me off as dead, but when it came to climbing into bed with you he was more than ready to doubt I'd ever come home?"

"He _never_ gave up on you! I did, plenty of times, but each and every one of them he was quick to tell me that there was no proof either way, that anything was possible," some of her fervor left her and her voice quivered, "that you'd make it back home to us. He prayed for it."

"Are you trying to defend him or convince me he stabbed me in the back?"

"_You're_ the one getting ready to write _him_ off despite the fact he's loyal to you even now."

"Don't talk to me about loyalty Stephanie!" He was scalded by the inequity of it.

But still, she didn't relent. "Even though he knew how much it was going to hurt me to be kept in the dark, he didn't tell me you were back. That's loyalty to you at my expense."

"He's had plenty of time though, hasn't he?" Ranger sneered. "He's been very careful to keep you busy since I came back and yet in all that time he never found a moment to mention I was alive? Tank always was resourceful and knew how to think on his feet."

Stephanie replayed the week in her head. Various odd moments, a few peculiar behaviors from Tank that she'd easily dismissed at the time, suddenly made much more sense to her now, but they certainly weren't nefarious. "None of that was part of any scheme," she said. "Tank was leaving it to you to contact me because you should have been the one to tell me. It was what _you_ should have done. He didn't say a word to me until he realized you were going to show up on the scene tonight and break my heart all over again," like a horrid, crushing, primeval force summoned from unfathomable and hellish depths, bald anguish shone from Stephanie, "only in _public_ this time."

**"**_I_ broke _your_ heart?" The hypocrisy of it was a brutal, indecent truth. He'd grant that. But it was _her_ truth and he had his own deep, answering ache to match it. "You're the reason my heart beats and now you're telling me you're with my best friend!" Ranger stepped closer to her again. He wanted his pain to be as tangible to her as hers was to him, "but _I'm_ the one breaking _your heart_?"

Stephanie's cheeks burned. She felt the moisture build at the base of her lashes and the back of her throat. "You knew how I felt about you."

"Tell me what it was I knew, Stephanie," he demanded, sorrow reverting to ire, "because I'm feeling pretty fucking clueless right now."

"I slept with you." It was such a simple statement. But what it meant to each of them was so deep and so complicated.

"Yes." Ranger vividly recalled the heat that had radiated from her soft flesh while her thighs brushed against his cheeks and he couldn't control the hitch in his breath. "I do know all about that."

"Well…" Stephanie trembled and remembered the way he'd kissed her softly even as his body roughly surged inside her. "I don't just sleep with my friends for the hell of it, Ranger," she choked out unsteadily.

Ranger saw the color of her flushed face deepen with arousal and was betrayed by his own mind as he wondered which of her lovers was occupying hers. "You hopped in and out of Morelli's bed quick enough."

Her hand flew to her mouth as if she'd been struck. "But I wanted you!" she cried. "I wanted to try. Don't deny you knew about that when you decided to leave without telling me."

_"How_ was I supposed to know? When would I have found out about your feelings for me? When you were packing up and moving out of Morelli's house or when you were packing your bags to move back in?"

"I can't believe you're still bringing up Morelli!"

"The woman I left in Trenton a year ago had a steady boyfriend more often than not. You were fine. You loved Morelli when I wasn't around." Stephanie recoiled and Ranger advanced, determined to be heard. "Now you've swapped out Tank for Joe and since you're angry at me you dreamed up that it's an entirely new moral dilemma instead of the same old one you've always had. When are you going to get tired of that game Stephanie?"

Her eyes narrowed threateningly. "You think this is a game?" she hissed.

"Your dilemma was that I was unavailable," he announced with renewed authority and then challenged, "I'm here now."

They stood, toe to toe, eye to eye… and will to will.

"You're too late."

(1,474 words)

**A/N: Thank you for**** reading!**


	15. Shifting Gears

Disclaimer – I do not own the characters, etc. I am only borrowing them from Janet. This is not for profit, just for kicks.

**Ranger's Red Glare – Chapter 1****5****  
><strong>By PinPin

_(ten months and two weeks earlier)_

Tank glanced at the silent, glowing display of the phone in his hand. The late hour reminded him that he'd forgotten to turn in the changes to next week's schedule before leaving RangeMan and the date reminded him that it had been twelve days since he'd seen Stephanie. He'd heard talk of her occasionally when he went to the bond's office, but each time his stop-over was either too late or too early to run into her while he was there. As his annoyance at her unpredictable, irregular schedule grew, so did his relief that each new report of her testified more convincingly than the last that she was being smart and safe and increasingly successful.

But mostly, Tank felt an uncomfortable disappointment whenever he left the bond's office without so much as a glimpse of her. His life as Ranger's designated substitute had become a long series of monotonous days, filled with double the work and double the silence he was accustomed to. He had large shoes to fill and only a lonely seat to rest in. At least when Ranger was occupying it, he had Tank to talk to.

Her number was highlighted on his contact list and he was pressing 'send' without fully making the conscious decision.

"Hello," she answered on the second ring.

Tank was instantly inundated with the violent cacophony behind Stephanie's greeting. He heard shouting and gun shots. "Where are you?" he asked immediately.

Stephanie looked down at herself and thanked everything holy that she was at home where no other living being could see her. She was wearing a faded Iron Maiden t-shirt and old sweat pants that should have been trashed three years ago, but instead had been cut off mid-thigh to create an exceptionally ugly and supremely comfy pair of shorts. After a moment of fleeting curiosity about where Tank was and what he was wearing – not that she'd EVER ask him that – she answered, "I'm at home. Why?"

The angry voices continued in the background. "Is that the TV?" he asked. "What are you watching?"

"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance."

Tank thought he knew the film but wasn't sure. "John Wayne, right?"

"And Jimmy Stewart," she confirmed, "plus Lee Marvin. I love him."

"Lee Marvin?"

She chewed her lip, wondering if she'd regret saying that. "I like cowboys," she said with an unseen shrug.

Tank's response didn't change. "_Lee Marvin?_"

"I know it's a little weird, but that sexy, gravelly voice gets me every time. He has one of those voices that sound like they must taste good, you know what I mean?"

After a pause that Stephanie incorrectly interpreted as Tank's further dismay at her out-dated celebrity crush, he asked amusedly, "you mean like chocolate pudding?"

The voice on the phone was muffled for a moment, but he still heard the small sigh at Stephanie's end, "oh god," before her voice returned to full volume with a touch of mild embarrassment, "yeah, I guess kind of like that." She quickly added, "You know, I think Rex might be getting sick. He was acting strange today."

Tank smiled at his end. "Are you changing the subject?"

"No," she muttered, "apparently not."

She managed to sound miserable enough for him to take pity and let the matter drop. "Heard you had some car trouble again this week," he mentioned as his chosen diversion. "Al said something to me about getting yourself in a jam and then he started laughing so hard he couldn't finish telling me the rest."

"Oh, of course," Stephanie deadpanned, "and we should definitely talk about that incident because it is so much less embarrassing than getting drunk and telling you I like your voice."

Tank's smile grew. "You also took off some of your clothes, and you felt my muscles…"

"Okay, okay," she cut him off, "uncle alright? Geez…" A soft laugh escaped as she resigned herself to explaining the latest of her vehicular fiascos. "The deal with my car is that one of my skips was at home alone with her kid, so I agreed to take him along and keep an eye on him while Connie was re-bonding her." She dropped the phone from her ear again to sigh at herself and shake her head. She couldn't believe she was really going to recount such a humiliating tale for him. "Now you have to understand," she prefaced, "at the time I didn't know the kid was eating lunch when his mom told him to get ready to leave. So I had no idea that he'd shoved a half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich in his pocket."

Tank tried not to laugh, but couldn't manage it in the end. "I already love where this story is headed," he chuckled.

"In the car she started to explain that she'd be gone for a couple minutes and he'd spend some time with me while we waited for her to come back."

"Oh, no." Now his laughter was full and long. "Nothing good _ever_ comes from triggering a child's 'mommy-goes-bye-bye' syndrome."

"Yeah," she snapped, "that fact is officially no longer in dispute. This kid gave us definitive proof since he wasn't exactly a fan of the idea and knows how to throw one hell of a tantrum. The grand finale was pulling his waded sandwich out of his pocket and shoving it in my face. It was everywhere. _Everywhere_. Have you ever gotten peanut butter in your eye?"

"No," he answered, "I'm proud to say I've never had so much as a close call to a peanut butter related eye injury."

"Well, you'll just have to take my word for it then when I tell you it's unpleasant. And it certainly didn't help matters that I was trying to drive at the time."

"Was anyone hurt?"

"The only injuries were to my dignity and the front end of my car. Plus, one of the giant dancing mariachi guitarist sculptures at the Sloan and Klockner intersection is now a cripple and is going to have to hang up his dancing shoes."

"Those things are enormous," he mused with a twisted sense of awe as he mentally pictured the scene. [1]

"I've already had about a dozen angry phone calls from the State Council on the Arts and the Hamilton Sculpture Foundation," Stephanie said. "The story will be in the weekend edition all the way to Philly and I know my mother's going to have my name read out at mass when she hears all the details."

"Well, that's not really too embarrassing, is it?" he asked. She still sounded miserable to him, and he thought she was making a mountain out of what could easily be interpreted as a molehill. "It could have been worse."

"Speak for yourself," she ordered indignantly.

"Okay." For a moment Tank laughed and wondered at himself for what he was about to share. "The first year I had my license I hit a port-a-john with my dad's Lincoln while someone was still inside using it, and I don't even have a sandwich to blame it on."

Stephanie's jaw fell. "You are such a liar."

Tank wished. "It happened."

Hearing the strength of his declaration transformed every drop of her disbelief into curiosity. "Did it tip over?"

"No. The thing just sort of slid across the pavement with the front bumper pushing it until it hit some hedges and a bike rack. It wasn't pretty inside though and the guy didn't look so good either. He broke his wrist and my parents were responsible for the medical bills. They made me get a summer job to pay them back and to this day my brother still tells people the story, except the way he phrases it is that once I had a bathroom accident so terrible it caused several thousand dollars worth of damage."

"Yikes."

"The worst part is that I know it was about more than just a wrist for that guy."

"Definitely," she agreed. Stephanie literally couldn't imagine how she would have reacted had anything like that happened to her. "Surprise port-a-john attack certainly sounds like a sure fire way to put a permanent dent in a person's sanity."

"Yep. I did that and it was both embarrassing and tragic. He will never be the same again."

There was a subtle sigh of regret beneath his words. She recognized it from the many times she'd heard it escape her own lips. "You know," she smiled and remarked brightly, "when you say it like that you almost sound proud of it."

Tank blinked to himself for a second. She was incorrigible. "I wouldn't call it pride exactly…" his tone suddenly sounded lighter as well, "maybe wonderment."

"At least your car survived. The pretty, little bow on top of my situation is that repairing the damage would cost more than the car's worth. So since my insurance is already crap-olá and I'll be in just as much debt if I pay to fix it as I would be if I buy a car, the only realistic option is to spend the weekend car shopping." She punctuated the statement with a strong retching sound. Voluntarily handing over money for the next car she'd inevitably destroy was Stephanie's least favorite part of being a bounty hunter.

"I can help with your car problem."

"No thanks," she instantly declined. "My luck with cars is the same whether I'm destroying lemon dregs or a Rolls. I don't want another RangeMan car on my conscience."

"Um… good," he said, "because I wasn't offering one." Tank wondered, not for the first or last time, if he'd ever understand what there was between Ranger and Stephanie. "Couldn't if I wanted to, actually, I'm not allowed to give them away. They aren't mine."

Stephanie mentally winced. It seemed to her every time she talked to Tank there was another new reminder of how unlike Ranger he was and how wrong her assumptions were.

"But," he continued, "I _can_ make a call to the dealership that supplies RangeMan. Most of us got our personal vehicles there. He won't jerk you around or try to rip you off if you tell him you're with us."

"Oh," she answered, pleasantly surprised. As a matter of fact, Tank clearly demonstrated for her that she didn't know of _anyone_ else who was quite like Ranger. It was as if during the years she's known him – trying her best to accept his closed off manners, determination to have his way, and strict ideas about privacy – she'd forgotten that for the rest of the world people showed each other that there was more to them than a job, a bank account, and a sex drive. Tank kept showing her that he was more than that. "Sure," she accepted his offer, "thanks, that'd be great."

"Is there a specific kind of car you want this time?" he asked with his gentle chuckle. "You've already worked your way through plenty of makes and models that weren't up to the challenge."

"Not a Smart Car," she vowed. "That would be a no win situation, because if I don't burn to death in its fiery destruction, I will be crushed to death by the weight of the astronomical quantities of irony it would introduce into the universe."

They each sat back, making themselves comfortable at opposite ends of the city, and chatted easily about cars; first car, best car, worst car, dream car. Tank learned the Legend of Sander's Buick. Stephanie heard the tale of Tank's disastrous first lesson piloting a M981 FISTV. More than an hour later they each said their goodbyes and goodnights, Tank never having mentioned his original reason for calling and Stephanie never having thought to ask.

(1,956 words)

**A/N: Thank you for reading!**

[1] Based on J. Seward Johnson's "Los Mariachis" and the 'Grounds for Sculpture' park in Hamilton, NJ.


End file.
